Zed
Abby's home phone rang minutes after he'd safely ushered Kara from the home and out into the arms of the surrounding police and SWAT.
Zed picked up the receiver.
“This Zed Hesse?” the officer on the other line asked.
“Sure is. Who's this?”
“Det. Reynolds. Tommy Reynolds. Fine if I call you Zed?”
“Mr. Hesse will do, Detective. Are you getting my list of demands together?”
“Listen, it's going to take some time for everything you've asked for, Mr. Hesse. There’s quite a bit you're asking for, here.”
“Well, let me help you out by speeding the timetable along. You call Mark Letterman, Pharma-Vitae's head of sales. You tell him he has four hours to get the money together, and that I'll be meeting him at their home office.”
“Mr. Hesse, I don't-”
“I'm walking out of here with Abby Winters as a human shield, so if you guys want to pull that sniper bullshit on me again, you'll be shooting up a Forbes five hundred CEO on international television. Got it, Detective?”
“This is—I can't agree—”
“Get off the phone,” Zed said, his voice cold and level. “Call Mark Letterman. Now. Her life's in your hands.” He slammed the phone down into the cradle and headed back over to Abby, who was still taped to the chair. He bent down and began to cut through her bonds.
“What's going on?” she asked.
“I'm getting you out of danger, that's what,” he said, cutting through the straps binding her ankles.
She was suddenly frantic. “How, Zed? How are you getting me out of danger?”
“By leaving here, and taking the cops with me. If anything happens, and I don't think it will, I don't want you around it, okay?”
She bit her lip and tightly closed her eyes. “Zed,” she whispered, “I don't want to lose you.”
He frowned and bent to her wrists, slicing the bonds surrounding first one, then the other. “I don't know how I can stay,” he said, as he sliced through the last one. “I can’t stay and keep you safe at the same time, Abby.”
“I don't want to be safe, if it means you're not here,” she said, reaching out for his hand that held the scissors. She wrapped her lithe fingers around his larger hand and squeezed. “I want you, not all this.”
Zed took her hand in his and looked her square in her weeping eyes. “It doesn't matter what we want. I want you, too. But I've still got a mission to protect Kai, and to protect you now, too. Okay?”
She frowned and nodded as she sniffled back some of the heavier tears.
“Good,” he said. “Now, help me out. I gotta make a pile of trash bags look as beautiful as you.”
# # #
Abby
Tears in her eyes, and loss in her aching heart, Abby helped Zed dig through her closet for clothes that would be suitable. They needed to both stuff the garbage bags and clothe the makeshift dummy.
“This isn't going to work,” she groaned, sniffling as she pulled her clothes down from the hangers and handed them to him.
“Of course it will,” he said, his voice infinitely more confident than she was feeling. “Most distractions are all flash and bang, with no substance. That's what this will be about. I'm not walking out of here with your double. I'm leaving in the car.”
Dubious, she looked at him. “My car?”
“Right out of the garage,” he soothed. “They'll never see me coming.”
She pulled down a couple Mark Jacobs dresses she really loved, sighing as she dropped them into the growing pile at her feet. “I just don't understand why you have to go out this way,” she said, trying to fight back the real water works.
He came up behind her and wrapped her in his arms. He pulled her close to his chest and leaned down to nuzzle her neck. “Do you trust me, Abby?” he whispered, his breath tickling her ear.
She sniffed. Did she? Even after all this week and after the days in the closet? “Yes. I mean, I've let you . . .” She sniffed again. “Yes, I trust you.”
“Do you think I'd ever hurt you for no reason?”
That was a tricky one. He had masterminded this whole thing on a whim, after all, as he desperately searched for a way to help his brother. But, deep down, she knew he'd come to care for her, as crazy as that all sounded. If he'd asked her these same questions just six days ago, she probably would have had a very different answer on her lips.
But, this wasn't six days ago. This was today. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, I know you wouldn't.”
“Then I hope you understand why I have to leave. If I stay here, I'm putting you in harm's way. I couldn't live with myself if something happened to you because of me.”
“But what about me?” she said, her voice taking on a desperate whine she hadn't wanted to be there. “Why should you take that burden, and leave me without a choice in the matter?”
“Because you agreed to the rules, Abby,” he said, his voice perfectly even as he squeezed her tightly in his embrace. “Didn't you?”
She sighed as she saw Zed's peculiar brand of weird logic in all this. “Yes, sir, I guess I did.”
He released her and, with that settled, they silently went about stuffing the bags that would become her ‘body double.’
“It won't win any awards,” he admitted, as he put the double together and stuffed an empty silk pillowcase over the misshapen head,” but your windows are pretty heavily tinted.”
Abby chewed at her lip, shaking her head. “No, it definitely won't.”
He turned to her. “Now, once I take off, the cops are going to follow me. Don't leave the house till they take off, okay?”
Still worrying at her lip, she nodded.
“After all of this is said and done, you can go on with your life. Okay? That's what I want for you, after I show that Mark and the board are to blame for this.”
She nodded, her face turned away so he couldn't see the tears.
“You got it?” he asked, touching her shoulders, gripping her more roughly than before. “Huh?”
She nodded, more forcefully than before. “Yes,” she said. “I understand.”
“I just want the best for you,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “You know that, right?”
Through red-rimmed eyes, she glanced up at him. “I know,” she replied, her voice as quiet as his. “I know you do.”
They stared into one another's eyes, their gaze not breaking, their eyes not glancing away.
Abby could feel the emotion between them like a palpable tension that hung in the air, a pregnant feeling that filled the room. She wanted to tell him how much she cared for him and how she didn't want to see him hurt, but she couldn't put her thoughts and emotions into words.
He broke their moment first, pulling her into his arms again, his strong, controlling, gentle, brutal arms wrapping themselves around her and pulling her close. He pressed her head to his chest. “I . . . I love you, Abby Winters,” he whispered.
“I'll never testify against you,” she replied, as she encircled him in her arms, clinging desperately to him. “Never. They can threaten me with whatever they want, but I'll never do it.”
Zed laughed quietly, the sound a knowing one that had more depth than Abby could understand. “Oh, Abby,” he said. “They have more on me, I'm sure, than what you could give them. And I know it. But it's okay. As long as I know you're safe, I'll be fine.”
Abby, though, didn't have that luxury. How could she ever be happy, knowing he was the one taking the fall for her?